Skydiving!

The most common thing I have heard in my short skydiving career is that I must be crazy, have a death wish, or am an adrenaline junkie.

While I do thrive off of adrenaline, actually I have a life wish. I enjoy living my life to the fullest. Skydiving is not as safe as sitting on the beach, but it is not as dangerous as the average Joe believes it to be.

I did not know what skydiving was about when I first jumped out of a plane. I thought it would be like a huge roller coaster where gravity took me for a ride.

I still don’t know what skydiving is about as it always is changing for me, but I do know that I am not a slave to gravity – that I can fly my body in every direction (except up) during freefall.

My first tandem jump, where I was attached to a professional who did most of the work, was in 1998. I did it to check off a dream on my “to do list” in life. A lot of people do this, and even though they have not experienced skydiving to the fullest, I still respect them.

I did my second jump in 2004. It was thru the AFF program, where you jump with a parachute on your own back, but with instructors assisting you for the first 7 jumps. Then I did my first solo – and did so many front flips during that jump I think I am still dizzy.

Sometimes I jump and have no goals (other than living at the end of the jump) – and I just enjoy the view as some people enjoy a hike in the woods… But my woods are much more expansive and serene.

Sometimes I jump with friends and challenge myself to fly my body well with them. It could be a tracking sunset dive, where we all fly across the sky towards the sunset and mountains. It could be just two people leaving at the same time and staying near by and watching each other do tricks.

Already, even as a novice, I find myself jumping with people with less experience than I, and then I am helping them learn. That is rewarding when they say, “that is the first time I did that.” I often jump with people with much more experience than I, and that is just as rewarding.

And, my current passion and goal is to get good at “4-way formation skydiving”. Imagine leaving the plane holding onto three friends in a formation, and then building different formations for the next 35 seconds, where each formation equals a point. World champions build a formation every second or two and practice with 1,000 training jumps a year. Perhaps I will compete in the Nationals?

Travis

 

Video of training camp in Perris, CA - March 2005